1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention generally relate to managing documents stored in different Electronic Document Management Systems. More specifically, embodiments of the invention provide for accessing electronic documents with revision history from a non-compatible repository.
2. Description of the Related Art
Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) are used to store multiple versions of electronic documents so that users may access previous versions of a document. When a user creates a new version of a document, the EDMS may record additional data associated with the new version, commonly referred to as “metadata.” Metadata may contain information such as who made changes, the date or time changes were made, and a new version number for the document. Moreover, metadata may be updated any time a document is accessed, viewed, or modified. Additionally, the EDMS may store content of the new version separately from prior versions, allowing each version to be accessed independently. Thus, the EDMS can provide a complete revision history for each document.
Typically, the format and type of metadata varies between different EDMS vendors. For example, one EDMS may store metadata labeled “Author,” “Creation Date,” and “Employee ID” for each new version, where another EDMS may store “Creator,” “Date,” and no corresponding field for employee ID. Further, an EDMS may allow users to define metadata describing various features or history of a given document. For example, an EDMS may allow users to define document categories or document types, specify access restrictions or other security related attributes, etc. Regardless of the particular EDMS, the metadata and content changes associated with each version may provide a broad variety of information related to the history of a given document, along with a copy of each version.
Additionally, an EDMS typically allows users to check-out and check-in a document, as well as export a complete version history for a document (i.e., a copy of each version of a given document along with the metadata associated with that document). Similarly, an EDMS may allow a user to import a document. However, when importing a document, the EDMS typically creates a new, essentially blank history for the imported document—setting a newly imported document to be the initial version. Thus, even if that same document has a history (metadata and other versions) stored on another EDMS, that history typically remains unknown to the importing EDMS.